Edge computing is a distributed computing model that brings computation and data storage closer to the sources of data. More broadly, it refers to any design that pushes computation physically closer to a user, so as to reduce the latency compared to when an application runs on a centralized data centre.[1]
The term began being used in the 1990s to describe content delivery networks—these were used to deliver website and video content from servers located near users.[2] In the early 2000s, these systems expanded their scope to hosting other applications,[3] leading to early edge computing services.[4] These services could do things like find dealers, manage shopping carts, gather real-time data, and place ads.
^Davis, A.; Parikh, J.; Weihl, W. (2004). "Edgecomputing: Extending enterprise applications to the edge of the internet". Proceedings of the 13th international World Wide Web conference on Alternate track papers & posters - WWW Alt. '04. p. 180. doi:10.1145/1013367.1013397. ISBN1581139128. S2CID578337.